


Reminiscence

by ZeloAvarosa



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Other Characters - Freeform, Suicidal Thoughts, to be added - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-26 21:00:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12066903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZeloAvarosa/pseuds/ZeloAvarosa
Summary: Many ages has passed since the fall of the Old Light, but the new Queen still can not move on





	1. Family

The Door to the Abyss broke apart from her presence like dust in the wind. The cold windless chasm slightly visible through the door, Hornet has always hated this place.  
She threw her needle up into the ceiling and the thread hung all the way into the darkness. From so many years sitting on a throne, she thought she had forgotten how to throw and swing the needle, funny, it seemed to never have left her. 

The old bleached masks remained stillness as usual, in another time, there would have been little shadows all over the place but nothing rose to see or challenge her. The abandoned lighthouse, it had stopped working, recently or years ago she doesn’t know. At the shore was a black ocean as vast as the eye can see, the Void Sea, resting at last.

Hornet shifted off her crimson cloak, marked with streaks of gold and another grey cloak atop it, shaped like tendrils or wings. She placed down the cloak by the shore and stared out. Everything was at peace here, the stress of ruling could not touch her here.

Scooping some void in her hand, she felt the ice cold liquid pool out back into the ocean. She never could accept it, accept that this was what she was born from. Little Ghost was able to, then again it was much stronger than herself. It was able to win against the Old Light, was it not?

It was funny, her siblings, all the little ghosts, are now at peace. Yet she was tasked with the challenge of ruler, with the stress of rebuilding Hallownest. Would she have asked for more? To be at peace instead of this? Would the Little Ghost have wanted her to rest? So many questions yet no one to ask, for who would understand with her?

“It’s funny, you’re all at peace now, nothing will hurt you at the bottom of the world” Hornet called towards the ocean, “Do you still know me? Know what's above you? Do you even want to know?”

The caverns returned to silence, a deafening silence that filled her ears and mind

“Are you even here anymore?”

The world returned to the crashing sound of silence. Standing up, Hornet wanted to call out, to yell, to throw herself into the endless void. She had always been alone, always worked alone, never confining into anyone. Now there was no one to confine to, no one to be with, no one to work with. The King and Queen are nowhere to be found, her mother and mentor were dead. Everyone else of her birth was gone into the same icy cold void that lapped at the shore she stood upon. It wouldn’t be hard to join them, a slash of the needle, no one would find her ever again. 

“Maybe I really am weak”


	2. Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, took me a while huh.  
> This fic is gonna be a short one, next chapter should be the end. I promise I wont die on you for 4 months again. I have four more fics I want to write as well, so expect more of Silent, Beginnings and three more new ones.

“Hornet? Hornet!”

Hornet turned, the sounds of silence replaced by someone calling her name. From the darkness, a blue shelled bug ran out towards her. He wore a hood around his mask, conic and pointed towards the back, tied around his mask was a golden thread which hung a pendant, Hornet’s symbol. 

Quirrel ran at her, arms outstretched to hold Hornet in a hug, as she yelped in surprise “Thank everything that is good, I thought the worst when your advisors told me you were heading down.” Releasing Hornet, she stumbled and almost slipped into the sea. “What is this place, by the way” Quirrel asked, staring around at the lighthouse and the darkness.

“This,” Hornet stated, giving Quirrel the evil eye,” would be the Abyss”

As Quirrel gasped in awe, Hornet took her time to dress in her robes, unlike some bugs, she was expected to wear more than a hood and mask around others

“The Abyss… it’s a rather sad place isn’t it?” Quirrel tried to make small talk

Hornet just sighed, wasn’t it obvious? she thought

“I mean, it's so dark, it's chilly, its no resort”

Another sigh

“Did I do something wrong? Miss?”

“Do you still remember the little ghost?” Hornet changed the topic

That gasp, just a little hopeful, but full of sadness and loneliness, its something she had learned to expect from bringing up their name. As the days faded on, their name came up less and less

“O-of course I do, miss, I would never have forgotten them”

Hornet gestured towards the vast ocean of void, “This is their realm, them, and the millions of other ghosts, were born here” 

She wasn’t looking at him, but Hornet knew what Quirrel was about to ask

“So, they are here, they can still be… with us?”

Oh how Hornet was, being here with one without a shred of understanding.

“No, even if we took the whole ocean and took them into masks identical to the ghosts, they will never be the same. It was luck that gave them the strength, the strength to break through impossible”

A strength I seem to lack, Hornet thought

“O-oh” Was all that Quirrel could say, staring dejectedly at a mask with far too many horns.

“And besides, the ocean rests,” Hornet sweeped her hand across the black ocean before Quirrel, “it won’t move ever again” Hornet finished, all but one bit that is.

Hornet’s view moved from the black ocean towards the great landmass. The Pale King did not rest back on this place’s creation. Thousands upon millions upon billions of white bleached masks remained in the biggest graveyard in Hallownest, likely, the world.

A mask with a horn grown into its eye, it would have been blind. Hornet could see it, a poor blind ghost stumbling around in the darkness. Another one with just a single horn, perhaps it could have made it up to the top, but it was one of the millions that never even escaped the Abyss.

In her mind's eye, she could see all the vessels that had made it up to Hallownest, a vessel with the power to control the Dream. Another who could produce wings. One that became at one with nature. An oversized claw which could grapple onto walls. One in chains. One in a silver robe. An vessel which still clung on even when held in the clutches of the old light.

Most memorable, a tall knight wrapped in a grey cloak, silver armour and an oversized nail. Horns that reached up into the sky. The same knight, their cloak tattered, their armour shattered, their eyes burning with an orange fury. Little ghost fighting it regardless, their tiny nail flashing in the orange light. Hornets nail whistling in the air, her own white thread spinning, weaving, tied up. Something other strength let Hornet hold down the Hollow Knight as the ghost disappeared into its mind, to not let go as the walls flooded inward, and in the end, as the black void faded away from the temple, only Hornet remained.

A new chapter started that day. Millions upon billions of trillions of vessels have tried, it was impossible, but if a moth and bee could find love, if a vessel can speak or a mantis can write, anything can happen, even a miracle.


	3. Friendship

“Hornet? You’ve been quiet”

The soft warm voice of Quirrel pierced through Hornets thoughts like an echo

“Hornet, are you okay? You’ve been very quiet” 

Hornet looked back, there was an attempt to keep up her formidable facade, but it melted away into a sad look as she looked back at the vessel’s mask. Out of everything, she was left behind by the Abyss.

But why?

The question plagued her for so long. Before, she was content with the explanation of her lineage to the pale light, but as time wore on, that explanation seemed to lose meaning.

The intricacies of ruling was a much more difficult battle than any bloody duel, pleasing everyone, dealing with disaster and corruption, But Hornet had dedicated her life to the art of battle.

Hornet breathed in the cold air, even now, even after ages without training, her reactions were still sharp, she could still firmly plant her needle into the rock roof, lightly glide down the thread. Even now she could sense the movement of Quirrel behind her, from sound and movement alone. 

But discussions, compromise, corruption in the court. It was too much for her, even after practicing it for so long.

The silence granted solitude, the void sea didn’t yell at her to open the banks so that new buildings could be built, that another village had been struck by disease, famine or death, that an army was close to Hallownest’s border or that corruption has fallen in the darkest regions of the city

“Hornet!”

She would have snapped at Quirrel, normally, but her anger had already been sapped away.

“Quirrel.” She replied curtly, her voice dripped with tears. Why was she crying? 

“Hornet, please”

It was something in Quirrel’s voice that stopped Hornet from going on, that seem to break Hornet’s facade. The tears began to flow uncontrollably, out and down her white mask, falling upon the bleached masks. She let Quirrel walk up to her and hold her in his arms. She leaned on Quirrel’s shoulder and started to speak, the sorrows of being queen, endlessly working, the tragedy and pain of battles, and when she was done with that, she spoke of all her fears and sorrows.

Sobs and crying quietened down to silence, and Quirrel kept Hornet in his arms, quiet and patient through it all. After a while, Quirrel spoke up

“You have taken it upon yourself to lead Hallownest, you have worked so hard and you are the best queen I know” He spoke directly, “You are a great person, you are my friend”

Quirrel then looked out to the void, “The little one would think the same, I’m sure of it, they wouldn’t want you to be upset”

Hornet pried herself out of the hug, “thank you” she quietly replied, after a bit.

\------------------------

Hornet stood still, watching as the white essence returned into the doorway. Quirrel had already gone ahead, but Hornet stayed behind, watching the door close back on the Abyss, the swirling white mist flowing back together between the arch, filling, concentrating together till it shimmers back into solid stone, the emblem of the king emblazoned upon the rock.

Hornet felt the familiar cold metal of the needle in hand, the air-like thread wrapped around her weapon, weightless and familiar. 

She had this weapon with her for so long, as long as she could remember

In one fell swoop, the nail flew from Hornets hand, impaling into the ground. It would remain here, forever a sentinel to guard the door from opening again.

The door has closed and it won’t open for another age.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said this chapter would only take a month?
> 
> HAH
> 
> I’m sorry for taking so long, I don’t know how to end these sort of stories, but it’s finally done.


End file.
